


City of Angels

by Bodhicitta



Category: Benedict Cumberbatch - Fandom, Cumbercookies - Fandom, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sherlolly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodhicitta/pseuds/Bodhicitta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benedict has a new Guardian Angel.  She still has a lot to learn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sariel and Ben

_It's your first day and you're already late for work?_

_I'm sorry.  I got caught in rush hour._

The shadowy forms bustled about everywhere, landing on rooftops, dropping down in front of speeding cars, racing into windows to stir sleeping babies, sweeping through surgeries to make sure all was in readiness.  The morning had begun, and Sariel was disoriented by her colleagues' sailing without heed through the foggy morning of London, bashing into one another, shoving each other out of the way, less a ballet than a stampede.  She was used to a much slower pace of work, a leisurely stroll past coffee shops and a quiet beginning to a dull work day.

Sariel was excited for her new assignment, and if she had had a heart, it would be racing a mile a minute.  Looking, looking, looking.  Steeples and pickle-shaped skyscrapers and towers and row houses and gleaming glass edifices. It was all so confusing. There it was.  The home of her new charge.  She felt that he was still sleeping, because of her sense of calm and peace; her first assignment was to wake him so that he wouldn't be late for _makeup_...whatever that was.

Sariel could hear his alarm from light years away.  How he could sleep through that annoying electronic buzz, she did not know.  She slipped in through his window and sat on the sill, which was fully open to the cool air.  He was coughing lightly - not enough to wake himself up, but enough to disturb his sleep.  No wonder he needed help waking up.  She made a mental note to make sure his window is closed at night, at least during the winter, and to investigate the source of his coughing.  Still the alarm chimed, and he did not notice.

His room was dark but not dark enough.  Sariel looked about and found the culprit – he had left a light on, and a book was upside down on the floor – another reason for his poor sleep.  The light would be trickier.  She had missed her workshop on 21st century wiring _.  I’ll have to ask Azazel how to manipulate electrical devices._

Softly, she tread closer to his bed.  He stirred.  Well.  Maybe he won’t need my help after all.  She leaned closer, considering various strategies for waking young men, trying to remember her class on Somnolence.

A light touch – too sexual. 

Knocking something off of his bedstand – too traumatic, and might make him even more skittish about falling into a deep sleep.

Stroking his back?  Brushing his hair out of his face? A whisper.  That was it!

She leaned in close to his ear and murmured sweet nothings.  _Wake up, sleepy head.  Time to get up, silly._ His face was still squashed in the pillow, and his back rose and fell rhythmically.  This was not working and he was going to be late.  She ran to the bathroom, and with a wave of her hand pre-heated the shower water so that it would come out hot right away.  She didn't really have to wave her hand, just a leftover vestige from her early training, and it helped her organize her energy.  When she came back to the bedroom, he had flipped over.  She froze at the sight of his face.

Smooth, honey-colored skin stretched over exquisite bones, bones almost too delicate for a male. His lips...his Adam's apple.  Eyelashes....

_He’s beautiful._

She gulped back her admiration.  Angels were not supposed to differentiate among humans.  Chocolate-y, coffee-colored, creamy, buttery (she liked to think of people in terms of food).  Large, small.  Old, young.  Male, female, trans-gendered.  They all emitted the same lovely glow, a kind of pink mottled with lavender.  The glow of life and the living.  Normally this glow obscured their physical features, not entirely, but enough to ignore the slight difference among all people.

However, him...she could see him clear as day.  If she was in possession of a heart, it would have skipped a beat.

But Sariel would have to save her admiration of his physical attributes for another time.  He was on the verge of being much too late.  She opted for stroking his hair, the glossy auburn curls all askew.  Later he would wonder why sometimes when he woke up his hair was a mess, and sometimes, it looked as if he hadn't slept on it at all, today being one of those days where he could just run some water through his locks (dispensing with shampoo), and they would fall into place with almost no product.

He began to blink his eyes, and she immediately stopped rubbing his scalp.  He took a deep sigh, and then started from the bed like a race horse, stomping all over the room, cursing like a sailor.  

"Goddammit!  What the fuck is wrong with me? " 

His alarm was still chiming and his phone was buzzing.  He grabbed his phone, looked at the text message, and yelled, "Great.  The car's outside.  Shit!"

He almost knocked Sariel over as he charged into the bathroom, turned on the shower.  A puzzled look crossed his face - some days, the water came out just the right temperature, other days freezing cold.  Finding it surprisingly hot today, he began to strip.   

Sariel peered around the corner into the bathroom just as he tossed his threadbare grey t-shirt onto the floor to join his already discarded boxers.  She fought back a surge of some emotion that should have died a long time ago.  Something exciting, but something thoroughly unbecoming an angel.  She looked around her, knowing no one could see her, and yet knowing she was always being watched, by Someone.  She stepped backwards out of the bathroom, scampered into the kitchen, and set up his coffee.  Her finger hesitated over the switch, but not for long.  It had a timer.  If he found the coffeemaker already brewing, he would think that he was so exhausted that he forgot setting it up the night before.  That was plausible.  

She almost put a mug and some cream out on the counter, but thought that was going too far.

Within ten minutes he was dressed, caffeinated, and out the door.  His hair was sopping wet, but at least he was clean.  

In the car, the driver asked him if he wanted to stop by a Starbucks.  Ben looked up from his script and murmured, "No...I've already had coffee."  His eyes narrowed as he tried to remember setting up the coffeemaker last night.  But then he shook off his sense of discomfiture and resumed studying his lines.

_Now is the winter of our discontent_  
 _Made glorious summer by this son of York;_  
 _And all the clouds that low'r'd upon our house_  
 _In the deep bosom of the ocean buried._


	2. Sherlock and Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Which one is the angel?

His phone buzzed, and he ignored it.  Ignored it while he ran a long slender finger along her mantlepiece.  Ignored the buzzing while he opened her topmost dresser drawer and inhaled the rich fragrance of vanilla, sandalwood, and something indefinable, like the pure, loamy earth undergirding a virgin forest.  The combined scents were so sweet, he felt his heart clench.  He knew he should stop opening the drawer because this would cause the fragrance to fade, and he dreaded that day, the day when he could smell her no more.

_Blad.  Time to leave._

He wanted to stay.  If he stayed, he might be able to witness another apparition.  Another anomaly.  For science.  He should stay for science.

If he sat for long enough, stared at her bookshelf long enough, he might see a book move.  Like the last time.   But he may have been dreaming then.  So if he kept himself awake, kept himself seated still as a statue, and awake, dammit, he might see the book move, or the remote control, or behind him, a pillow.  Damn he should have been looking behind him at the pillows on the couch.  His muscles ached with staying in one place so long, and he hadn’t slept for days.  No, he couldn’t lay on her bed, as tempting as that was.  Her bed must remain pristine, untouched.  But if he lay on the couch, then the pillows couldn’t move.  He needed to remain vigilant.  And hence the chemical enhancements.  For science.  To observe the pillows moving.

_Sherlock, I’m coming in._

His eyes were getting bleary, but he saw it.  The book moved.  That was real.  Observable.  He had ingested a very specific cocktail of legal and illegal pharmaceuticals that would ensure he would not fall  asleep and simultaneously not have his eyesight impaired.  The book slid back into place.  He stored this information in his Mind Palace. And next time, he would bring a camera.  He would begin chronicling these occurrences in a way that no one else could dispute.

Mycroft sees but does not observe.  The Brother was too entrenched in his habits of mind to realize something paranormal was happening.  He didn’t want Mycroft to come in and disturb his experiments, so he relented.  Since she left.  Left.  Departed.  Since that happened, he had sealed the apartment, paid her rent to keep it from being let out, installed a lock with a self-cycling, re-encrypting code only he could access.  He flushed the toilets and ran the water through the pipes, but other than that basic maintenance, he insisted nothing be touched, change, moved.  He needed to control for variables.  And so he needed Mycroft, and John, Lestrade, and everyone to _stay out.  Just stay out._

Of course he needed them to stay out, because how else could he account for the delicious fragrance that wafted up out of the couch right now, something that ignited his most base instincts, the lust, the things he had quelled and conquered.  He could not have other people mucking up this data, which was so intimately connected to the pillows, and the couch.  

His phone buzzed again.  He scooped up her cat and sweeped out of her flat, Belstaff billowing behind him.  As usual, the cat scratched and clawed and mewled bloody murder, and then lept from his arms, crashing against the floor, quickly recovering before dashing to hide somewhere in the stairwell. 

***

It was better when she didn’t think of him, as painful as it was to let go.  At Bart's she remained cheerful and hard-working, taking on extra assignments, saturating herself with work.  In some small way, continuing her career seemed like a way of honoring the work he did, which ultimately, was for justice.  Everyone could see that now.  It wasn't just the satisfaction derived from solving puzzles.  He could have experienced that playing online chess.

He chose to help people, and saw no difference between the dead, the dying, the living...and those only pretending to live.

It was only in quiet moments, alone in her flat, when she could have sworn she felt the air move just as it does when he walks by with that ridiculous coat (even in the summer he wore it).

_Walked by._

Laying on the couch, she started steepling her hands under her chin, just as he does. 

_Just as he did._

It was a new habit, something that tied her to him physically, she supposed.  She smiled at herself, and then shook this off.  She had to shake these thoughts off, and get on with the tasks of living.  This meant her boards.  She was trying to earn another qualification and had to study.  And then there was the seminar she would be teaching next semester.  Her arms and legs felt like lead, but she spied a book across the room, just the book she needed.

Molly rose and walked across the room, tripping on nothing.  She looked down at her feet.  The area rug was not rippled or twisted in any way that would cause her to stumble.  She opened her eyes wide – maybe this is what getting older is like.  The slow decline.  Losing one’s balance.  Tripping over your own feet.

She fingered the book, slid it out for a moment, and then thought better of it, pushing it back in place.  The bed was gently calling out her name, but she had abandoned it of late, preferring the couch.   In bed she sank too deeply into dreams that could never be, and it was increasingly hard to wake up in the morning.

She adjusted the pillows to exactly the right thickness and contours, and relaxed deeply into somnolence.  Dreams of a boy with curly black hair, piercing eyes, a child’s rudeness.  He strokes her hair, caresses her face, blesses her lips with soft kisses, so many things he never did, never did…

Some time after falling asleep, she was vaguely aware of Toby screeching, probably getting into a fight with the neighbor’s cat.  In the hallway.  How he got into the hall she could not figure out.  It had been happening too much lately.  Sherlock could figure it out.  He could figure out anything.  Anything.  And Everything.  If only he applied his mind to things that mattered, like her breasts and how to touch them, and her lips.

And her neck.  And.


	3. Sariel and Ben: The World's A Stage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sariel doesn't understand what being an actor means....chaos ensues.

Sariel made sure her young man got up every morning on time.  This was her number one task.  She had been informed in no uncertain terms that this placement was probationary, and she was determined to hang onto her new job no matter what.  To that end (and even though she would rather be frolicking with dolphins), she submitted to weekly conferences with her predecessor, a sweet-natured angel named Hesediel.  Sariel at first was nervous around Hesi, who had recently been promoted to the Order of Archangels, but the older angel was not at all stuck up and was, in fact, very generous with her time.  Occasionally, Hesi gently encouraged Sariel to add other tasks to her duties.  

"And what about his love life?"  Hesi asked as they perched lazily on top of Big Ben.  Hesi noted that the time was incorrect on the clock face, but merely sighed.   _Not my monkeys, not my circus._ She greatly enjoyed of sitting atop a phallic symbol that shared the same name as her former charge, but the irony seemed to be lost on her successor.

"I'm not sure what you mean." Sariel hazarded, after a moment of confusion.

Hesi smirked.  "Is he getting any?"

Sariel didn't know what Hesi was talking about.  "Getting any _what_?"

Heis turned to face Sariel directly.  "How old are you, anyway?"

"About 500, give or take..."  Sariel remained a little hazy on the details of her ascension.  

"Okay, we'll discuss it later."

"Do you mean sex?  Because there's an awful lot of that.  Mostly in his shower."

"And is he alone?"

"No.  I just said, I'm there.  His shower is awfully big.  Very nice.  Granite.  Marble accents."

"No, I mean - I know you're there!  But does he have another _mortal_ with him?"

"Oh..."

"We'll discuss that later."

Sariel flexed her wings and prepared to find her young man, who she was sure was hungry, or tired, or a bit sad.  But Hesi grabbed onto her sash, temporarily arresting her flight.

"Oh, and Sariel..."

"Hm?"

"Stop watching him masturbate in the shower."

"I don't...."  Sariel began to protest, but then remembered she was talking to an newly minted archangel, and probably shouldn't fib.

 ***

Sometimes she misplaced her charge, but if she did lose track of him, she could find him by the tendril of smoke rising from his window.  Somehow that tendril of smoke pulled her in like a fisherman's line.  She couldn't help but follow that fragile trail into his bedroom.  Wafting in through the window, which she closed behind her.  Padding across his floor (although she didn't need to tiptoe, she couldn't break with old habits).  Covering him with the pale green coverlet which had slipped to the floor.  Pulling off one sock, then the other.  Rubbing soft circles into his back as he nestled down deeper into his pillows.

Occasionally, he would not be alone when she found him.  Sometimes a lovely, slim woman who smelled of expensive perfume was curled up beside him, whilst another angel, presumably the guardian of the sleeping woman, sat in a corner, ennui writ large across her features, flipping idly through the pages of Bridget Jones' Diary, or Cosmo, or a Barbara Cartland.

But more often than not, he slept alone, tossing and turning, his coughs echoing off the walls, each cough sending an inexplicable jolt through Ariel's heart.  Her _metaphorical_ heart.

Every day after she woke him - increasingly hard to do - she followed his car, or cab, or tube to something called The Shoot.    Sometimes he was on foot, and having barely passed Advanced Geonavigation, she had to dash over and through the crowds to keep up with him.  

When she first heard about The Shoot, Sariel became concerned.  Very concerned.  It sounded altogether too violent.  She wondered if she ought not deflect him from this pursuit.

But after observing his spending habits she realized that this was his way of obtaining currency, and since she had no real way of procuring food and shelter for him, she had to let this questionable activity continue.  She did make a note, however, to resume her study of survival skills for the homo sapien.

Weeks passed.  The Shoot was taking forever, even by way of an angel’s reckoning of time.  To alleviate her boredom, Sariel sculpted clouds into ice cream sundaes, and ocean waves, and cartoon characters, and other angels.  Famous ones, like Michael (so, so hunky...so dreamy).  On one particularly dull day, Sariel unleashed a sudden hailstorm, sending the cast and crew scurrying into their trailers, ducking under awnings, and clinging to trees to escape the cloudburst.

She continued these antics until the Angel Baradiel scolded her through a thunderclap embedded with the message: _“Hail is my area.  Stick to your assigned duties.”_

Today she was perched on top of a scaffolding next to a tall, Nordic cameraman who smelled delightfully of baby powder and baby lotion - his new, tiny little family saving money by using all the same skin care products.  Diniel, The Infant Protector, intrigued by the scent, came sniffing round, and after satisfying herself that this big, burly man was no baby, sat down next to Sariel to take a rest.

"Who’s yours?" Sariel asked out of courtesy.

"That beautiful baby."  Diniel pointed to an infant being rocked by a woman who paced in front of the coffee truck.  Diniel waved at the baby; the baby smiled broadly and cooed back.

"And you?"

Sariel pointed to Ben.  "Him, the good-looking one."

"They're all good-looking.  Especially the little ones.  See my baby, see how clean and bright she still is?  She's only been here one month!"

Sariel's maternal, or sisterly, or, well, just her angelic pride swelled.  "Mine is the one with those eyes like agates, and limbs like a beautiful tree..."

Diniel blew a kiss to her baby.  "My baby is going to be a famous architect.  I've decided.  Look at those hands.  Maybe an oboe player."

"Well, mine is the one wearing the armor."

"Lots of them are wearing armor today."

"Over there," Sariel pointed insistently, "sucking on the firestick."

"Firestick?  You mean…"

"Yeah, firestick, that’s not what you call it?"

"No.  It’s a cigarette."

"Oh."

Diniel looked at Sariel with a flabbergasted expression.  "How old are you?"

Sariel looked down sheepishly.  "I’m not very old.  500...give or take."

Diniel chuckled.  "You're a baby.  I’ll explain cigarettes to you another time."

They watched the production in silence for a time, and then the infant actor began to wail.  The director called cut as everyone began grousing about how hard it was to work with children.  Diniel swooped down to comfort the crying child with a silly face and a loving whisper, and then bounded back up the scaffolding like a mountain goat.

The production day dragged on.  For at least two hours several men tinkered with the placement of a green plastic bush.  At last, something exciting began to happen.   An aggressive-looking bearded man riding a white stallion charged at Ben with a pike.  Sariel swooped down, planted herself in the horse’s path and held out her hands like an air traffic controller.  As the horse approached her, it whinnied, nodded its head in acknowledgement of the angel’s request, and made a hard right turn away from Ben.  The rider was thrown, his pike went sailing through the air in a dramatic spin, clattering down atop a huge camera.  The director called "cut."  Makeup artists, and extras, and gaffers scurried everywhere.

Sariel looked admiringly at her work.  Ben shook his head in confusion as he raced over to assist the stuntman off of the ground, weighted down as he was by so much fake armor.  Ben helped the rider hobble over to the medical station, where a nurse began wrapping the injured man's ankle in a bandage.  The set was in chaos, and the director called an early lunch.  

As Sariel walked away with a somewhat smug look on her face, Diniel, The Infant Protector, joined her.  

"Why’d you do that?  Now my little lamb will have to stay here for at least five more hours.  I wanted her home in bed by 3 pm."

Sariel was flabbergasted.  "You didn’t see? He was in danger.  That man was about to run him through!"  She pointed dramatically in the direction of the medical station and glared at the stuntman, who suddenly felt a chill across his heart.

Diniel placed her arm atop Sariel’s, and gently pushed the younger angel's arm down before a bolt of wrath shot out of her index finger.  The stuntman took a deep breath, stood up to test his ankle, and gingerly walked to the trailers.

Diniel turned to her abruptly.  "You really don't know what is going on here?"

" _Of course_ I know what’s going on here. "  Sariel looked about her at the remnants of the battle, which seems to have been postponed for a lunch break.  "What’s going on here?"

Diniel swept her arm to send a light breeze towards her infant charge, cooling the baby girl's sweating face.  "What do you think is going on here?"

"It’s some kind of war.  An odd one to be sure.  That man," Sariel pointed to the director, her arms shaking in barely contained fury, "that man is ordering everyone around, and he’s...he’s perpetuating the...conflict.  And my charge, he seems to be the brunt of the attacks.  Everyone is against him..."  

She balled up her fists, "And I can’t stand it.  I would jump in there and fight myself if it weren’t against _The Rules_ ," articulating the last two words with sarcastic curled fingers on either side of her mouth.

"Okay, I need to explain some things to you.  Let’s walk.”  Diniel gently took Sariel by the arm and led her past the extras milling about the craft services tables, heavy laden with sticky buns, bananas, cartons of juice, and small containers of yogurt.

Sariel eyed the pastry eagerly.  "Mmm...doughnuts!"

"Now stop that," Diniel scolded, swatting the younger angel's arm away from the tray of confections.  "This is not a war."  

Sariel opened her mouth to disagree.  Diniel shushed her.  "This is pretend."  Diniel looks sideways at Sariel's blank, uncomprehending face.  "Make believe?"

Sariel screwed up her face at the makeup artists creating suppurating wounds and dangling bits of flesh and bone on otherwise entirely healthy thespians.  A costume designer ripped an actress's dress more thoroughly to make her fictional deflowering seem more brutal.  

"But why would they pretend such things.  Such horrible things."

"It’s story telling.  You mean, you’ve never ever seen a movie?"

"I’ve seen plays."  Sariel sweeps her eyes around her.  Cameramen fiddling with their equipment.  Makeup artists chasing uncooperative actors.  "Is this a play?" 

Diniel gently, cautiously explained to Sariel what fiction was, and stagecraft, and how the invention of moving pictures did indeed begin to blur the line between real life and the life of the imagination, but that mature people understood this difference, and only children and the mentally ill did not.

Just then, Diniel noticed her sweet baby being wheeled away in its pram.  Because Her Angel was out of sight, the little tyke screwed up her face and made hiccuping noises as if she were about to wail.  

"I have to go  We'll talk more later."  Diniel kissed Sariel on the cheek and trotted after her baby.  Looking back over her shoulder, Diniel added, "You might want to see to those cigarettes.  Those _fire sticks_."

Sariel found Ben in the crowd, just a bit apart from the throng; indeed, he was sucking on his firesticks.  Again.

"Why? Are they bad?"

But Diniel had disappeared, leaving a cloud of sweet-smelling baby powder and babies laughter behind her.


End file.
